Cartridges

Originally Posted by Gerry

Interesting reading the 10audio.com reviews.

Well I have a Shelter 501 MKII along with Denon 103R (I've probably bored you all in the past with my thoughts on this cartridge) and Goldring Eroica Denon 304 and a few others.

At the moment the battle is between the Shelter & 103R.
It is something I'm struggling with as the 103R is proving to be a hard one to beat.
The Shelter has a lot more, in fact, it is very forward. Funnily enough something the Denon has been accused of. The 501 has massive bass slam and attack. I'm finding the Denon the subtler of the two at the moment!

The Denon has a HUGE soundstage, much bigger than the Shelter and this has a big bearing on my perception of which is the better. You close your eyes and there is a 20ft wide wall of sound with instruments and vice dispersed and moving throughout the soundstage, both in width and depth.
The Shelter on the other hand is rock solid with the focus in between the 2 speakers. There is width to the soundstage but no where near as wide as the Denon. The Shelter’s soundstage has greater height, floor to ceiling, and is more forward sounding.

Now there are reasons for this, so I believe. I’ve spent a lot of time playing with the loading on the Denon; this has made a huge difference. I have yet to find the sweet spot for the Shelter when it comes to loading. (I’d love to know where you ended up Steve on your 901?).

Gerry - have you had chance to try 3k load resistors in your Phono II for the Shelter 501 yet? I'd be interested to hear if you end up with this or a different value....

Steve

[Gerry]

Steve

I haven't....but I have a weekend on my own and the forcast is rain!!!
I will have a look at the loading, 3K strikes me as high, but I'll try anything.
I'm asuming you have 3K in place of the 47K on the PCB???
What step-ups are you using? The WAD ones?
I'll let you know how I get on.

Hi Gerry

Sounds like a good weekend to me .

Yes the 3k is in place of the 47k on the circuit diagram - I think 1k resistors originally came with the step-up tx's to replace the 47k's?

I got to 3k after putting a couple of small variable pots in place of the load resistors so that I could make large, then small changes untill I liked what I heard. I then took the variables out and measured the resistance (ca. 3k) and replaced them with fixed 3k ohm resistors.

And yes I'm using the standard WAD step-up tx's.

Steve